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Sandra DeLozier Coleman

One of my daughters paints intriguing fairy tale images not related to well-known stories. The presence of dandelions growing in snow or of a woman with branches for wings invites each viewer to create his or her own story. Calculated Chaos is in some ways a mathematical fairy tale inviting interpretation. Out of nothing but four quadrants of symmetrically curved lines, the mind can create Chinese dragons ingesting black pearls, a series of destructive storms, dissonance extending to the ends of the earth, a ring of dancing chickens or four chipmunks with strange, bulging eyes. It is perhaps most satisfying, however, to put aside the need to define or make sense out of chaos and simply savor the stillness of symmetry.

Calculated Chaos

50 x 60 cm

Ink on Paper

2017

In our need to make sense of a world in which orderly and chaotic elements are intertwined, our perceptions are so colored by our personal experiences and psychology that what we see often differs greatly from what the person beside us sees. We see the same individual elements, but not the same whole.

Calculated Chaos is a hand-drawn conglomeration of lines with at-a-glance symmetry. The obvious algorithmic repetitions suggest order and direction, maybe even the idea that equations could be found to generate all of the curves, but unlike computer-generated forms where equations precede the images, this somewhat chaotic image is full of deviations from precision that make movement from image to equations a mind-boggling challenge.